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Copyright of International Journal of Professional Business Review (JPBReview) is the property of Open Access Publications LLC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Academica Turistica is the property of University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies - Turistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The presented article focuses on the issue of customer segmentation in the hospitality industry and its use for price optimisation. To identify the market segments article uses the Two-Step cluster analysis. The analysis was based on the seven variables (length of stay, average room rate, distribution channel, reservation day, day of arrival, lead time and payment conditions). Six clusters were identified as following segments: Corporates, Early Bird Bookers, Last Minute Bookers, Product Seekers, Values Seekers and Last Minute Bookers. To optimise the price for these segments, article works with the coefficient of price elasticity of demand for the presented market segments. The price elasticity of demand is measured by the log-log regression analysis. Data were colected from the four-star hotel in Prague, Czech Republic and analysis is based on more than 9000 transactions. Last minute bookers segment was the only one with the positive coefficient of price elasticity and has the lowest value of lead time (9,27 in average). Product seekers have the highest coefficient of price elasticity (−3,413) and highest average room rate (3573 CZK in average). Early bird bookers, Long time stayers, Corporates and Value seekers was identified as pricely inelastic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies have empowered the consumers with ease of access to information about products and services in form of electronic word of mouth (eWOM). eWOM plays a critical role in consumer purchase decisions in the form of online reviews. The study uses the S-O-R framework to examine the impact of online reviews on online hotel booking. The data were collected using purposive sampling through an online self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using the PLS-SEM technique. The results of the study show that review valence significantly impacts review credibility whereas review length does not. Furthermore, credible reviews lead to high purchase intention. The positive impact of purchase intention on purchase in online hotel booking context is a novel finding. We suggest managers to include more positive valanced reviews to develop trust and credibility while take proper measures to reduce risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of travelers' growing preference for sustainable hotel accommodation, this study investigated the relative importance of green certification labels/badges in online hotel selection/booking choice. A conjoint analysis was performed on seven online hotel attributes (including green certification labels/badges) in two specific scenarios (imagining they were booking in a pre- and post-COVID-19 setting) using 270 U.S. subjects surveyed in April 2020. The results revealed that green certification labels/badges do impact travelers' online hotel booking choice, but not as much as cancellation policies, hotel rating, price, and location. Price in particular exerted a greater influence on travelers' booking preferences in the post-COVID-19 scenario. Yet, a significant percentage of travelers (around 40% in both scenarios) were willing to pay more for a hotel with green certification. These results contribute to our theoretical and practical understanding of the factors that influence online hotel booking, as well as the power of green certification labels/badges in driving online hotel bookings in the pre-and post-COVID-19 contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Studies show that internet has become a major force propelling growth in tourism sector in many countries. An appropriate diffusion of the information and communication technology (ICT) services can facilitate visibility of hotels and lodges on search sites and third-party booking websites and thus influence demand. It also helps leverage the use of social media for promotion and customer acquisition purposes. Recently, Myanmar, with impressive historical world heritage sites, is witnessing a tourist boom; more hotels are opening up and achieving competitive advantage by offering free internet connectivity to guests and locating their premises in the vicinity of an ICT infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate ICT readiness to support the lodging industry in Myanmar by focusing on one sub-index of the Network Readiness Index (NRI, a term heavily used by World Economic Forum). The paper focuses on the "Network Use" component of NRI, pertaining to the effect of the "quality of the Internet connection" available to lodges, and its association with the following dimensions: customer service: the availability of ICT services to guests, such as internet connectivity and availability of ATM in the vicinity; digital marketing: the use of social media, keeping records of guests and analyzing aggregate data to extract business insights; and business-to-business online booking: the use of online booking via major third-party intermediary websites like Expedia, Booking.com and Agoda.com. Design/methodology/approach: Surveys were conducted in three major touristic cities in Myanmar: Bagan, Mandalay and the capital city, Nay Pyi Taw. A total of 101 valid questionnaires were used. Survey questions were centered around the following themes: internet connection problems, digital marketing activities, and online booking directly or via third party digital intermediary. The data are presented and interpreted by descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Findings: Though, Myanmar is new to internet and commercial use of ICT, the awareness of the importance of leveraging social media and online booking for business development is surprisingly high in the lodging sector. On average, about 80 percent of surveyed hotels are present on the WWW through a dedicated hotel website. However, most websites lack an online booking capability. As a result, and due to a global trend, online booking through third-party intermediaries has become the dominant option for hotel booking arrangements in Myanmar. Agoda, founded in Bangkok in 2002, was found to be the number one choice for online booking intermediary in Myanmar, followed by Booking.com. Analysis of the logistic regression revealed that it was highly likely that areas around ATMs have better internet connectivity. As expected, it was also found that it is very unlikely that hotels reporting a problem in internet connectivity will be able to provide internet service to their guests. Despite the presence of problems in internet connectivity in Mandalay and Bagan cities, located away from the capital; most hotels in these cities resort to leveraging social media for promotion and customer/guest development. The analysis also revealed that cities located away from the capital are more aggressive in leverage online third-booking intermediaries. Research limitations/implications: While researchers were hoping for a higher participation rate in the survey, especially in the city of Mandalay, data collection was challenging, a number of hotels/lodges denied participation. This may have some implications on the generalization of results. However, over 70 and 45 percent of hotels/lodges in the capital city and the ancient city of Bagan, respectively, had participated in the survey. Practical implications: Tourism has a great potential for growth in Myanmar. This research recommends ways to achieve and sustain competitive advantage for the lodging sector, which is vital for tourism. Originality/value: Though a considerable research exists on tourism and the recent advances of the ICT sector in Myanmar, the country's readiness for the actual usage of the internet for the development of tourism has not been specifically addressed. This paper explores this with compelling research findings useful for policy makers as well as players in the tourism sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Photos are powerful tools to attract individuals' attention and convey service experiences. Yet exactly how visual cues in a photo contribute to the perceptions of the staged servicescape, and how these perceptions inspire online booking/reservation behaviors, remains underexplored. Addressing the gap, this study aims to uncover (1) how perceptual information mediated by an online photo contributes to the formation of consumers' holistic perceptions of the service environment and (2) how such consumers' holistic perceptions further influence customers' online purchasing behaviors. Design/methodology/approach: This research adopts an innovative crowdsourcing approach and refers to field data on consumers' online hotel booking behaviors to examine relationships among inferred servicescape dimensions, consumers' holistic perceptions of the mediated servicescape and their actual online booking/reservation behaviors (e.g. page-view and meta-click behaviors). Findings: Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis indicated that five mediated servicescape dimensions (i.e. color, lighting, furnishings, layout and style) contribute significantly to consumers' perceptions of the mediated servicescape (CPMS) and exert different impacts on CPMS. Connecting the crowdsourced rating and consumer behavioral data, CPMS is found to influence consumers' aggregated page-view and meta-click behavior, especially in the US market. Originality/value: Building upon servicescape theory, the medium theory and the online booking literature, this research proposes a novel conceptual framework of CPMS to theorize the process by which visual cues in online photos contribute to CPMS and subsequent online purchase behaviors. Findings from this research extend Bitner's servicescape framework to mediated service contexts and provide practical implications for promoting service businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst growing emphasis on sustainability in the hotel industry, hotels are increasingly adopting sustainable practices. This trend extends to online platforms, where hotels showcase their sustainability labels as a form of advanced Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Such CSR communication is crucially influenced by how customers perceive the consistency of a hotel's CSR efforts. In the sphere of online hotel booking, customer reviews play a pivotal role as other external clues, illustrating how well hotels fulfill their fundamental economic responsibility. Our study aims to investigate the interactive effects between hotel sustainability labels and the valence of online reviews on customers' booking intentions. Based on attribution theory and several experimental studies, this research reveals that in the context of negative hotel review valence, the presence (vs. absence) of sustainability labels decreases customers' booking intention due to an increase in perceived hypocrisy towards the hotel; conversely, in the context of positive hotel review valence, the presence (vs. absence) of sustainability labels enhances customers' booking intention due to an increase in perceived morality towards the hotel. These findings contribute to the literature exploring hotel sustainability labels, online hotel reviews, and perceptions of hotel hypocrisy. ● Hotel managers should balance sustainability labels with online review management. ● The label-review mismatch heightens customers' perceived hypocrisy towards hotels. ● This label-review mismatch reduces customers' booking intentions towards hotels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to fill the gap in the existing methods related to the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices with smart contracts without a need for intermediaries for the reservations and services secured by Blockchain for the post-pandemic economy. Although there is a limited number of studies in the literature, which are mainly based on the reviews of the integration of smart contracts with the IoT devices, the questions about how to apply these methods in the tourism industry remain unanswered. Therefore, this present study contributes to the existing literature by creating a contract with a reservation system integrated with hotel services. The proposed method creates a booking system with a unique smart contract between customers and hotels. These contracts will include all kinds of services a customer may need during the stay and will be secured by a Blockchain structure. Besides, it might help eliminate commission fees and reception costs with the decentralized proof mechanism in the proposed method which combines smart services, IoT devices, decentralized proof methods, and interplanetary file systems with Blockchain-based smart contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turismo: Visão e Ação is the property of Turismo-Visao E Acao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Gharee for Economics & Administration Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A difference-in-differences analysis is used to investigate the short-term price effects of eight sporting events in Finnish Lapland. Data consist of 220,000 room bookings from the reservation system of a nine-hotels chain. Treated hotels are those located within an area where sporting events are regularly held. The control group consists of hotels further away that are not affected by the event. Robust regressions show that hotel room prices rise by 14% on average during the event, when booking and guest specific factors are held constant. For the pre-event period, no significant positive price effect can be detected, and for the post-event period, there is even a significant negative effect of 6%, on average. In addition, there is a large variation in the price effects across the different sporting events, with the highest for the Levi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup competition (60%) and no effect for some small-scale events. Quantile regressions show that price effects are slightly higher for high-priced than for low-priced rooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a room allocation problem for a hotel providing room reservation service through multiple channels. Traditional room allocation models usually assume hotels can forecast the characteristics of demand function and/or arrival process to some extent. But in practice, such a restrictive assumption is possibly unrealistic, and thus the corresponding risk-neutral approaches are debatable. The main contribution of this paper is that we formulate the hotel's room allocation problem without any assumption on demand from the perspective of minimax regret and derive an adaptive nested limits strategy which allows higher profitable channels having access to all rooms reserved for lower profitable channels. Our results show that customers arrive in a low-before-high manner in the worst-case scenarios. On this basis, we further prove the lower bound of maximum regret for any strategy and develop an optimal strategy matching the lower bound. Comparison with other common strategies is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Technology-Organization-Environment framework has been commonly used by several researchers for organizational adoption of digital business technologies, there is a lack of academic research tackled the Technology-Organization-Environment in developing countries. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating the relations among several Technology-Organization-Environment variables at Aqaba five star hotels located in Jordan namely relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, top management support, firm size, technology competence, competitive pressure, critical mass, information intensity, age, gender, educational level, personal income, and work position in enhancing perceived usefulness, and the latter on continuous intention to use mobile hotel reservation system of five star hotels in Aqaba, Jordan. An empirical study among 390 usable responses containing 36 items was analyzed using multiple regression analysis and machine learning techniques to test the research hypotheses. Results expose a positive effect of relative advantage, information intensity, gender, age, and personal income on perceived usefulness, and the latter on continuous intention to use mobile hotel reservation system. This research will enable decision makers to identify which variables should be emphasized in order to impact hotels' perceived usefulness of adopting mobile hotel reservation system, and in turn on continuous intention to use mobile hotel reservation system in service companies, especially in the hotel sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Researchers often use partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to estimate path models that include formatively specified constructs. Their validation requires running a redundancy analysis, which tests whether the formatively measured construct is highly correlated with an alternative measure of the same construct. Extending prior knowledge in the field, this paper aims to examine the conditions favoring the use of single vs multiple items to measure the criterion construct in redundancy analyses.Design/methodology/approach Merging the literatures from a variety of fields, such as management, marketing and psychometrics, we first provide a theoretical comparison of single-item and multi-item measurement and offer guidelines for designing and validating suitable single items. An empirical comparison in the context of hospitality management examines whether using a single item to measure the criterion variable yields sufficient degrees of convergent validity compared to using a multi-item measure.Findings The results of an empirical comparison in the context of hospitality management show that, when the sample size is small, a single item yields higher degrees of convergent validity than a reflective construct does. However, larger sample sizes favor the use of reflectively measured multi-item constructs, but the differences are marginal, thus supporting the use of a global single item in PLS-SEM-based redundancy analyses.Originality/value This study is the first to research the efficacy of single-item versus multi-item measures in PLS-SEM-based redundancy analyses. The results illustrate that a convergent validity assessment of formatively measured constructs can be implemented without triggering a pronounced increase in survey length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate how hospitality management research could benefit from the propositional style of theorizing, and how this approach could expand the scope of research in the discipline.Design/methodology/approach Developing new theories could provide unique insights and broaden the scope of research in hospitality management. To illustrate the power of proposition-based theorizing, this methodology is applied to the hotel cancellation policies domain.Findings Using the proposition-based theorizing in the context of cancellation policies, this study provides several propositions that could have broad implications for future research.Originality/value The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, the potential benefit of the proposition-based theorizing in the revenue management context of cancellation policies is demonstrated. Second, the theoretical frameworks and insights from the product return policy literature that could enrich future studies on hotel cancellation policies are introduced. Finally, this study conjectures on these theories’ relevance to hotel cancellation policies and consequently on their potential contribution to the scholarly discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While opaque products and distribution channels are increasingly popular, little is known about how customers perceive the quality of opaque hotel rooms. This study examined how price and star rating affect customers’ expectations when booking through opaque channels, and explored if different market segments vary in their expectations. An experimental design with six price and star-rating scenarios was employed. As predicted, expectations were significantly lower in opaque bookings. Moreover, customers were willing to compromise certain aspects of five-star service quality in exchange for opaque prices, such as room décor. Findings also revealed that customers who typically stayed at five-star hotels had the biggest gap in their expectations of three-star versus five-star hotel rooms of similar prices. As opaque selling is relatively new in Asia, this study is the first to explore customers’ perceptions of opaque booking from the perspective of young, Hong Kong consumers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism in Bihor county has great development potential because of human and natural resources existing here.In this paperwork was realized a diagnostic analysis of 5* Hotel, from Băile Felix resort, Bihor county. Based on the study and the data obtained, were calculated and interpreted the number of romanian tourists days (overnights) and the way in which the reservation was made. ( travel agency/booking).The technique used for data collection was the interview. The results lead to the idea that the Internet, especially the e-booking service, has an important influence on tourists' preferences regarding how to book their stayings. The conclusion of the study is that, nowadays an efficient marketing implies a careful online promotion, which brings beneficial results in the growth of the number of tourists accommodated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the dynamics of platform business models as an entrepreneurial ecosystem and its effects on regional development. Here, we seek to answer the following research questions: (1) What effects do platform business models have on regional development? (2) What factors and structures affect the dynamics of platform business models? (3) How can we describe the dynamics of platform business models in app stores and hotel-booking industries? To answer these questions, the authors first analysed two platform entrepreneurial ecosystems in the smartphone app store industry (Google Play’s Android market and Apple’s App Store) and two ecosystems in the hotel-booking industry (Hotels.com and Booking.com). Second, we analysed the effects of platforms as entrepreneurial ecosystems on the regional development of Daegu Metropolitan City. We used in-depth interview methods with a semi-structured questionnaire, system dynamics (SD) simulation, a literature review, and a statistical analysis as research methods. The results of these analyses yielded the following findings. First, platform business models as economic ecosystems motivate a change of regional development from focused areas to multiple areas, from a hierarchical structure of firms to a network of diverse firms, and from scope and scale economy-based firms leading regional development to creative economy-based firms leading regional development. Second, we identified three category factors that were important in a platform ecosystem, and built up and simulated causal and SD models of these factors. Third, we found that the dynamics of platform ecosystems differ from platform to platform because the openness of platforms produces different effects on firms according to the industry to which they belong. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The objective of this study is to analyse how people process information and make decisions with regard to booking hotel rooms via online booking systems. The authors propose a nested decision process and compare it with the approach of previous literature in analysing the determinants in choosing a hotel. This research attempts to model online hotel bookings in the real market using discrete choice modelling. The methodology is based on the estimates of nested logit models, and the results show that tourists choose a hotel by going through a number of staged decision structures, which is in line with Associative Network Theory and the Cybernetic decision-making model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is considerable interest in the advance bookings model as a forecasting method in the hotel industry, there has been little research analyzing the use of an advance booking curve in forecasting hotel reservations. The mainstream of advance booking models reviewed in the literature uses only the bookings-on-hand data on a certain day and ignores the previous booking data. This empirical study analyzes the entire booking data set for one year provided by the Hotel ICON in Hong Kong, and identifies the trends and patterns in the data. The analysis demonstrates the use of an advance booking curve in forecasting hotel reservations at property level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The collaboration on hotel room booking service between hotels and third-party websites provides hotels much benefit on increasing capacity utilization. But the commonly used “first-come first-serve” (FCFS) form put hotels in a disadvantageous position especially when the websites have much more market attractiveness than the hotels. This paper proposes a new form named “setting Online-Exclusive-Rooms (OERs)” for a hotel to collaborate with a third-party website on room booking service. The form is presented by solving a two-stage decision problem: in the first stage, the hotel determines the quantity of OERs which can only be booked online through the third-party website; in the second stage, the hotel sets an acceptance policy to treat the additional request from the website. Analytical results indicate that “setting OERs” can improve the expected revenue of hotels compared with the current widely used “FCFS” form. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The expansion of booking hotel rooms online has changed the booking process in the hotel market environment. This investigation evaluates Egyptians’ attitude as an overall inclination towards booking hotel rooms online. It consists of two phases: a focus group phase and a survey phase. Initially, focus groups were formed for the purpose of identifying general perceptions of Egyptians with respect to the use of hotel booking websites. Information generated from the focus group study contributed toward questionnaire (survey) development. Results suggest that Egyptians generally show positive attitudes towards booking hotel rooms online. The implication for hotel brands is that they should focus on making the experience of online booking safer in order to convert non-bookers to bookers. This is important because the safety features of online booking (secure transactions, privacy of information, and online fraud) appear to be more important than the usability features (convenience, usefulness, ease of use, and efficiency) for nonbookers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Online travel reservation has become a consumption pattern of tourism product that gains increasing favors from consumers, with obvious growth volume in hotel online reservation. Currently, in this market, there are both models of travel online business agents and hotel official websites and we witness more and more fierce in their competition. Is there any significant difference in terms of their price? Do different types of hotels show the same outcome? Based on this background we make an empirical study of the price competition of hotel online reservation in China by using paired-sampled T-test method and deeply analyzed the price-fixing regulation and the cause of the formation of these two kinds of models on online reservation channels. Corresponding suggestions are thus put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines two types of consumer prepurchase uncertainty: knowledge and choice uncertainty, and identifies the relationship between uncertainty dimensions and the degree of consumer external information search in online hotel booking environment. The study employs a 2 (high/low knowledge uncertainty) × 2 (high/low choice uncertainty) between-subjects factorial experiment (N = 107), and the MANCOVA results partially support hypotheses that the participants with high knowledge uncertainty undertake less extensive information search online, whereas those with high choice uncertainty more commit to online information search. The study discusses the findings in light of economics of information theory and psychological aspects of information search. Managerial implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online hotel bookings have recently become popular in both direct and indirect distribution channels. Although prior studies have stated that attempting to find the lowest price is a major factor for customers in choosing a website for booking, the existing literature contains virtually no articles that examine the terms and conditions (T&C) offered on online reservation channels. The study reported herein investigated the importance of the room rates and T&C on six major websites for the 97 hotels on the member list of the Hong Kong Hotels Association (HKHA). The findings of this study are expected to provide a better understanding of the T&C for online bookers of hotels via different online distribution channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the implication of online reservation systems and their impact upon the hotel business in London City hotels. The resulting analyses consider the different distribution channels employed by the chain and independent hotels. The result of the mail questionnaire survey has been tested through statistical techniques, including means, t-test, and correlation coefficients. These findings have proven that regardless of how much money is being invested in the online reservation system, the reservation rate via the online system would not be affected. The system can be a useful tool for hotel managers as a competitive profit strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the technology acceptance model (TAM), this study examined users’ perceptions of reservation Web sites: hotel-owned and third-party. As an experimental study, this study tested whether a modified variant of the TAM could be used to evaluate users’ perceptions of two different channels for hotel online reservations. Perceived usefulness was a key predictor of users’ attitudes toward using hotel-owned Web sites, while perceived ease of use was a key predictor of users’ attitudes toward using third-party Web sites. Both perceived playfulness and attitudes were two key predictors of users’ intentions to use hotel reservation Web sites. However, no significant differences in users’ perceptions were found between the two types of Web sites. Overall, users had more favorable attitudes and higher intentions to revisit third-party Web sites than hotel-owned Web sites. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A successful revenue management system requires accurate demand forecasts for each customer segment. The forecasts are used to set booking limits for lower value customers to ensure an adequate supply for higher value customers. The very use of booking limits, however, constrains the historical demand data needed for an accurate forecast. Ignoring this interaction leads to substantial penalties in a firm's potential revenues. We review existing unconstraining methods and propose a new method that includes some attractive properties not found in the existing methods. We evaluate several of the common unconstraining methods against our proposed method by testing them on intentionally constrained simulated data. Results indicate our proposed method outperforms other methods in two of three data sets. We also test the revenue impact of our proposed method, expectation maximization (EM), and “no unconstraining” on actual booking data from a hotel/casino. We show that performance varies with the initial starting protection limits and a lack of unconstraining leads to significant revenue losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates guests' perceptions of the process of booking hotel rooms, To test the hypothesis that guests experience stress during the booking process, 224 guests in two hotels in New Zealand were asked about their experiences when making hotel reservations. The results of a qualitative analysis show that many travellers do find the process of hooking accommodation uncomfortable and stressful. Fifty-five percent of guests expressed dissatisfaction with some aspect of the hooking process. Lack of information about the hotel and its services were quoted most often as the critical factor, closely followed by dislike of the price negotiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on our interactions with managers at two large hotels, we present a realistic model of the hotel reservation problem. Unlike traditional models, ours does not assume that all customers arrive simultaneously on the targeted booking date. We explain why this assumption may not be appropriate for the hotel industry and develop a model of reservation booking which explicitly includes the room allocation decisions which are made on the targeted booking date. Based on observations of how the problem is solved in practice as well as the insights gained from this analysis, we develop simple heuristic procedures for accepting reservations. Computational results demonstrate that these heuristics perform well relative to an upper bound that is based on perfect information about reservations requests and customer arrivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

M hotel rooms are available at a date n periods from now. Reservations are made by customers for that date, which is at the peak of the high season. Typically, for such a time period, a policy of overbooking is exercised by the hotel management. Customers, however, may cancel their previously confirmed reservations at any time prior to their arrival, with no penalty. On the other hand, new requests for rooms for that particular date are generated anew. At the end of each period the hotel management reviews both the "inventory" level of remaining uncanceled (previously confirmed) reservations and the total number of not-yet confirmed new requests. At that time a decision is made regarding the inventory level of confirmed reservations with which to start the next period. A decision is one of three actions: (i) to keep the inventory at its present level (i.e., declining all new requests); (ii) to increase the level of overbooking by confirming some of the new requests and, if necessary, by trying to obtain some additional reservations (at some extra cost); (iii) to decrease the level of inventory by canceling some of the previously confirmed reservations (incurring a penalty for each such cancellation). Each occupied room at the target day carries a given profit, while each unhonored reservation at that time incurs a penalty. The problem is to find the optimal over-booking strategy that will maximize net profit. For both criteria, maximization of the expected total net profit, and maximization of the expected discounted net profit, it is shown that the optimal strategy is a 3-region policy as follows: For each period there exist upper and lower bounds and an intermediate point such that, (a) if the overbooking level at the end of a period is greater than the upper bound, it should be decreased to that bound: (b)if the inventory level is below the lower bound, two cases may occur: (i) if the discrepancy is greater than the number of new requests, all new requests shou [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the modeling and solution of a reservation network problem. The model is presented in terms of motel reservations, but is applicable to reservation systems for airlines, automobile rental agencies, etc. The network studied employs three methods for delivery of reservation messages, two of which serve jointly as a control mechanism. The problem solved is that of finding minimum rates for the control mechanism which ensure that, with a given probability, messages are delivered within a specified period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the OLG Dusseldorf in Germany has decided on June 4, 2019, that an Internet booking portal can oblige hotel operators not to offer hotel rooms on their own website at better conditions than on the portal page.